


blood & mint chocolate

by ivermectin



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Discussion of Predatory Behaviour, F/M, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, PTSD nightmares, Past Grooming, Past Sexual Abuse, Sexual Harassment, Victim Blaming, discussion about Ben/Serena, the only two genres i can write are romance and horror, this is horror, this is not a nice fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:00:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29506578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivermectin/pseuds/ivermectin
Summary: “You ever just realise that someone took advantage of you in a terrible way, when you were young, and feel stupid that it took you over a decade to unravel it?” Dan asks, quietly.
Relationships: Dan Humphrey/Ben Donovan, Dan Humphrey/Serena van der Woodsen, Rachel Carr/Dan Humphrey
Kudos: 7





	blood & mint chocolate

When he wakes up, Dan will marvel at the awfulness of the nightmare, through the feeling of unease and disgust and nausea. He will think, _I am cursed with imagination_ , because it truly is a curse; being able to have nightmares based on things that haven’t even happened.  
  


It starts out miscellaneously enough. He’s in a car with a man with eyes that look numb, emotionless, empty, blonde hair and plain features, unremarkable in some ways and very remarkable in others. It takes Dan a moment to place him, and when he does he already feels a stab of foreboding; a neat little “oh dear,” because it’s Ben Donovan.

It’s Ben, and he turns to face Dan. His eyes look intrigued but angry, and he puts a hand on Dan’s face, thoughtful, and Dan in the dream can feel the calluses under his fingers.

Dan’s already uneasy, but it only goes up ten notches as Ben begins to monologue. Ben talks about Serena, about _wanting_ , and he says, “Yes, she was just sixteen, but she was so beautiful,” and Dan says, struggling to get away, “You’re _sick,_ man, you’re disgusting,” and Ben says, “I never touched her,” and Dan says, “What about after you got into prison?” and Ben leans into his space, says in a voice all hoarse and threatening, “Do you really think you’re that different from me? You wanted her when she was sixteen, too.”

“I was _also_ sixteen then,” Dan says, but he’s shaking. “It wasn’t the same.”

“You probably imagined her naked,” Ben says, tired, like he’s predicting the weather. “Didn’t you?”

Dan looks away. “It wasn’t the same,” he says again, but he’s prickling with discomfort and guilt, feeling ashamed of it, of himself, of the feelings he’d felt and the time he’d spent waiting. And he’s prickling with it again as Ben leans forward to kiss him, mouth wet and in this dream, his mouth tastes like blood and mint chocolate, and Dan gags, pushing him away.

“It was the same,” says another voice as the car door opens and she enters, sitting right next to him. Rachel Carr slinks in, giving Dan a smile that shows all her teeth in a sinister, ghastly way. Her teeth look sharper than they did when he last saw her; the gleam in her eyes looks almost hungry. “Don’t act so high and mighty, so saintly, it’s not a look you wear well,” she tells him. She sits on the other side of him, and Dan’s practically caged in, the two of them on both sides of him and keeping him there. Her hand is on his thigh, and he wants to shift, but there isn’t much space in the backseat of the car. Ben’s crowding up on him, and Rachel’s hair is in his face. She smells the way she always has, except this time it makes him sick.

“You’re all the same,” Ben says, in Dan’s ear. “Wanting things you shouldn’t.”

“Doing things you shouldn’t,” Rachel agrees. “This was your fault. You initiated it.”

“Her fault,” Ben agrees. “I was just trying to do my job.”

“I was just trying to do my job,” Rachel agrees, one of her hands on Dan’s neck.

“And she was there,” Ben says.

“And you were there,” Rachel says.

“We’re all the same,” they say, together. “We’re all the same, and you’re one of us. You can’t hide or deny or escape it; you’re just as bad as we are. You’re the reason things went wrong. If I hadn’t met her – if I hadn’t met you – if we didn’t know you both, we would be normal. Do you understand? This is your fault. You’re not different from either of us.”

“I’m not like you,” Dan says, but the words are difficult to pronounce. “I’m _not_. I never – I would never – I don’t – ”

He wakes up abruptly from the nightmare to find his cat, Marx, plopped up on his stomach, the expression on her face one of unholy glee. She’s mewing, asking for food, even though it’s four in the morning, and he’s sure there’s already ample food in her bowl. Still, he goes and gets out a cat treat, and changes her water.

He washes his face by the bathroom sink, and looks at himself in the mirror. He thinks of senior year, of being so sure that he was eighteen and that Rachel couldn’t take advantage of him, and he remembers looking down on Nate for being foolish enough to be exploited by an adult. The joke’s on Dan. He feels ashamed of that moment, through the remorse.

And he thinks of Ben, and Serena, and he thinks he might actually throw up. She’d dated him, and everything, and none of them had done anything about it. They’d just watched. Because she was an adult now, so what did it matter? And he thinks about how Ben never did anything sexual with Serena when she was in school, but that doesn’t change the fact that he took her on that trip alone anyway, that he _could’ve_ done whatever he wanted, that he’d engineered a situation that he probably shouldn’t have.

And he thinks about Rachel, about how she’d kissed him when he was standing in the doorway and apologising, and he’d not seen it coming, and not known how to handle it or what to do with it but he’d figured it was cool, badass, the fact that he’d had a chance to do it. Remembering it now makes him feel sick and uncomfortable.

Shaking a little, he calls Serena. She’s still his emergency contact, even after all this time, even after everything. It might’ve been at least seven years since they’ve spoken, but she’s there, on his phone, in his speed dial.

He sits down on the floor, leaning against the wall, listening to the sound of her phone ringing. _Do you think I was a predatory boyfriend?_ he wants to ask.

But when she picks up, saying hello, asking him concernedly if everything is alright and why is he calling at 4:15AM, he just says, “No, everything isn’t alright, but it’s not an emergency. I think I just needed to hear your voice.”

“What happened?” Serena asks, again.

“You ever just realise that someone took advantage of you in a terrible way, when you were young, and feel stupid that it took you over a decade to unravel it?” Dan asks, quietly.

This is not the plan; this is not the script. But Serena surprises him.

“Yeah, that’s the nature of trauma,” she says, unconcerned. “Do you want to talk about it? Or… not talk about it?”

Dan smiles at that, despite himself. “How do you live with it?”

Serena sighs. “I don’t know. It’s different for everyone. But none of us have a choice. We just… have to keep going on.”

Dan thanks her, hangs up. He isn’t sure if he feels better, or worse. He looks at his phone. He wants to call Nate, or to call Blair. He knows they’d both get it, too.

He doesn’t do either. He gets off the floor, makes himself a cup of black coffee. Opens a word document. Takes a shaky breath, and then, begins to write everything in his head. He knows that once it’s out, he won’t have the strength or capacity to read it or go through it. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is getting it out.

He feels a little empty. But he writes about them. He sits there, and he writes, and he misses breakfast, and at nine in the morning he falls asleep, having saved a document that’s four thousand words long – four thousand words Dan isn’t going to read.

He wakes up with a crick in his neck. But no nightmares this time around. Thank god for small mercies.


End file.
